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[Loud Whispers]

Oh the horror, a virus infection has killed 50 people worldwide. Whatever shall we do. 🙄

A virus's lethality shouldn't be judged by the casualties it inflicts, it should be judged by how contagious it is, how easy it is to detect and how easy it is to treat. Oh yeah, and how lethal it is.

By China's numbers it's infected 1,400 and killed 50, that's in spite of the quarantine and new hospitals built, in addition to China being prepared for such a respiratory illness outbreak. If this shit were to spread internationally without controls, there's no knowing what kinda havoc it'd cause, especially when hospitals would get overrun by patients - leading to patients, even of other diseases, being turned away.

All in all it sounds like it's a little worse than a flu, with the worst cases having symptoms like pneumonia and kidney failure, but most people recovering after a few shitty weeks. There's no reason to panic but there's no reason to be complacent either, Lord knows China's already killed a hundred million pigs to stop swine flu spreading to other pig stocks or even spreading to human populations, so once (or if, heavens forbid) this disease is brought to manageable levels, there'll be more. Zika virus, ebola, this new coronovirus and even old diseases like measles are making surprise comebacks or debuts. It can join the list of regularly scheduled disease outbreaks like dysentry and tamer flu strains which we don't worry about too much because we're used to the casualties they cause by now

So do not be terrified; the Spanish flu has likely not returned. Yet be cautious and stop picking your nose, because the human population is increasingly in contact with animals, frozen tissues of ancient diseases and other humans all around the world

[TD1]

Yay globalism!

*rattles Bone Scepter*

[LordBaal]

 Was going to give an answer like that. It's not just the 50 people dead  (yesterday it was 29). It's the potential fuck up this can become if its allowed to escalate, combined with the lack of trust of what the chinese government says. If the official number is 50 then I suspect at least the double is something more realistic.

I for one know if Venezuela gets hit, and we assume a 3% death ratio it means potential thousands of dead without taking into account how shitty and barely existent is hour health care. It would be like a boxing champion throwing a punch with brace knuckles at a blind kid with osteogenesis imperfecta.

Most likely, no, being realistic, this wont represent a human extinction event or even take out hundreds or teens of millions of lives, but it could scalate to still a lot of dead people (directly and indirectly) if left unchecked.

[ChairmanPoo]

🤦🏻‍♂️  guys it's another out-of-season respiratory virus scare. We get one every three or four years. Seasonal flu kills half a million people every year and we don't lose our shit over it. It's not going to be *anywhere* resembling an apocalypsis. I'm fairly confident on national goverments being able to cope with whatever disruption arises. And I'm certainly not going to panic over this shit.
Again, this is not to say it should be ignored, anymore than regular flu, or any other condition should be ignored... but it's obviously not being ignored by the relevant authorities. The rest? The rest is media exaggeration, as usual. Bells and whistles to grab your attention.

[TamerVirus]

I’d still expect an economic effect with the disruption in China.
Market was down on Friday
The situation in China has only gotten worse since then

[Ziusudra]

🤦🏻‍♂️  guys it's another out-of-season respiratory virus scare.

Did you mean in season? Because now is the usual peak of flu season in the northern hemisphere.

[delphonso]

A few notes -
Numbers I have seen are being confirmed by the WHO. I don't think the government is misrepresenting any serious numbers. Estimates of real infection numbers (related to confirmed numbers and estimating between 5 and 10% catch rate) have been anywhere between 100,000 and the entire world population - because people like panicing.

In China, yearly influenza has a lethality of 2%, due to elderly relying on traditional means to treat very preventable diseases. That's also definitely happening now - and likely will contribute in no small part to the number of deaths.

Treatment trials have started in Shanghai, probably using SARS as an example.

[King Zultan]

*One person dies from a disease.*

OH GOD, WE'RE ALL DOOMED!
THE END NIGH!

QUICK EVERYONE PUT ON YOUR HAZMAT SUITS, BURN EVERYTHING THAT HASN'T BEEN DISINFECTED, AND AVOID ALL CONTACT WITH PEOPLE AND ANIMALS!

[Yoink]

Most sources I've seen put it at around 60 fatalities, even if they disagree on everything else. A friend claims it's actually something like 1500, though... I'm not convinced.   

[George_Chickens]

Why contain it?



S'cool.

Old men
Running the world
a new age

I have contamination and mutants in my brain.

[Jopax]

My only worry is that the damn thing is mailable since I got some stuff coming in from Chine in the next several weeks or so :V

[LordBaal]

My only worry is that the damn thing is mailable since I got some stuff coming in from Chine in the next several weeks or so :V

Sorry Jopax, this will be you.

[Loud Whispers]

*One person dies from a disease.*

OH GOD, WE'RE ALL DOOMED!
THE END NIGH!

QUICK EVERYONE PUT ON YOUR HAZMAT SUITS, BURN EVERYTHING THAT HASN'T BEEN DISINFECTED, AND AVOID ALL CONTACT WITH PEOPLE AND ANIMALS!

SHUT DOWN THE AIRPORTS, CLOSE THE DOCKS AND BURN THE BORDERS

GLORY TO MADAGASCAR

-final message of the Madagascan President

[scriver]

We will endure, and from your ashes we will blossom

[Reelya]

No zombies yet. Some scray videos of terrified people - probably traumatized by SARS which was pretty bad. Right now, the coronavirus has a lethality of about 3%. If it mutates and turns more lethal, then all hell will probably break loose.

A bit late, but it's worth noting that coronavirus is only really deadly for older people. The youngest victim so far was 36. Babies and young children have been infected by coronavirus, but none have died yet, which suggests you have to be pretty well compromised on health already for it to be deadly.

Compare that to something like influenza's spread, virulence and mutatability, and the fact that it will kill your kids, given a chance, and it's clear that you shouldn't specifically freak out about this coronavirus if you're not actually worrying about influenza already.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/01/24/coronavirus-versus-flu-influenza-deadlier-than-wuhan-china-disease/4564133002/